Forgotten ‘country lane’ experiment could be answer to Vancouver's desire for more green space

Vancouver's ‘country lanes’ could be the answer to a greener city

VANCOUVER — This city has less than seven years to reach its stated goal of becoming the world’s “greenest,” an ambitious if nebulous title that’s already attached to others, including Portland, Oregon, and geothermal Reykjavik. One proposed initiative is the improvement of its residential alleyways, from mundane, paved side streets filled with detritus and parked cars to spiffy pedestrian-friendly avenues interspersed with vegetable gardens and micro-parks.

The push is on, with city-managed open houses last month. But these are pie-in-the sky discussions with inscrutable visual presentations. A former city planner wonders why Vancouver doesn’t just revisit a simple experiment launched a decade ago; it saw several back alleys transformed into grassy and accessible “country lanes.”

“It was a tremendous idea that even won an international design award,” says Sandy James, who helped initiate Vancouver’s all-but-forgotten country lane project back in 2002. With help from local residents, three grubby lane ways in different city neighbourhoods were identified and rehabilitated the following year.

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Asphalt paving was removed and replaced with “structural grass,” rigid plastic honeycomb cells sprinkled with ordinary lawn seed and nurtured into green swaths. Concrete strips were embedded on two sides, creating a durable driving surface. Permeable brick pavers were installed in driveways and at the lane way entrances; these allow rain water to infiltrate between their joints and into the ground, reducing run-off, the bane of municipal storm sewer systems.

The effect is both practical and pleasing to the eye. No more cracked and potholed pavements. Traffic on the countrified lanes continues, but motorists must slow down to navigate the concrete driving strips. The grassed lane ways are cooler than asphalt in summer and they don’t emit the dreaded “off-gassing.” They have also passed the test of time; they still look fine, almost bucolic.

Most Vancouverites don’t even know they exist, but those whose homes back onto the greened-up lanes appreciate them a great deal. So much, says Ms. James, that the lanes have increased local property values. That’s something planners didn’t anticipate, she says. “It was the one mistake we made. Anybody who saw one, wanted one. And it made the houses on the three blocks really desirable, which created a bit of a problem with housing affordability.” As if that wasn’t already an issue in Vancouver.

The demonstration project was evaluated by the city’s engineering service five years ago. Surveys conducted among residents living alongside the experimental lanes indicated a majority were very satisfied, finding them attractive and more useful than paved routes.

Mike Klassen can vouch for that. A conservative pundit and city council candidate turned provincial director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Mr. Klassen bought a home that abuts one of the city’s demonstration lanes, just after the experiment was launched. “We were actually house hunting when we first drove onto the lane,” he recalls. “It was freshly seeded and sparkling new. It was so different that I thought we’d turned onto someone’s private property. I told my wife that we’d better get out of there.”

He says his grassy back lane has brought together his east side community. Neighbours are expected to maintain the strip, which Mr. Klassen regards as an amenity, an extension of his backyard; he calls it a “thin park.” He spends about 30 minutes each month mowing his share of grass, and says other homeowners do the same. It’s kept clean. “It’s not a place where people feel they can dump their old couches and garbage,” he says. “It became a gathering place for many us over the summers. We’ve held barbecues there.”

Later this month, Mr. Klassen is planning to hold a 10-year “anniversary celebration” in recognition of his beloved back lane. He’d like to see Vancouver city council revisit the experiment, which he thinks compares well to the more complicated lane way initiatives now being pursued. Ms. James agrees. The country lanes project stalled, she says, because it never received any “buy-in” from council. The reason: Green lanes cost more than paved lanes. “They became easy to forget, from an economic standpoint,” she says.

Many Vancouver lane way and street upgrades are considered part of a “local improvement process” and must be initiated by citizens and then approved by a majority of property owners who would benefit from enhancements. Typically, these are boring pieces of infrastructure such as traffic-calming speed bumps and curb extensions. The property owners are billed themselves for most street improvements.

Money is the biggest reason the country lanes experiment didn’t take off in Vancouver. The city funded the entire $225,000 demonstration project. New lanes built to the same design would cost affected ratepayers about $5,000 each, according to the city’s 2008 project evaluation. The amount would be spread over 10 to 15 years of property tax bills.

So while there’s nothing to prevent folks from petitioning the city to build more country lanes, they’ll have to convince their neighbours of their value. And that will likely include an inspection of the three lanes already in existence. The trick is finding them. They’re so obscure, so hidden, that city officials aren’t even sure about their precise locations.